The last few steps were both easy and difficult. Relief at finally having reached their destination clashed with physical exhaustion and decay. His feet stumbled to the threshold, shaky steps almost sending him sprawling. He barely recovered by catching himself on the cold, unforgiving metallic door. Waves of pain shot through him, but it was tempered with the knowledge that this was it. The end of this little journey.

  By now, he had grown used to the ridiculous size of the spaces they'd come across. Each previous room was so massive it could fit multiple city blocks inside; they must have been walking for hours, at least. That made this room in particular stand out in how much smaller it was. Not small, but smaller. The key difference was that his sensory range encompassed it entirely from end to end even before he entered.

  That gave him a clear view of what all was inside, and, having seen the interior, he had to admit he was confused. Was his failing brain not noticing something obvious? Because the only thing he could see was a circular platform in the center of the room. Dead center, in fact. The walls themselves curved around it, likewise in a circle. And he couldn't see a door on the other side either.

  The lack of an exit was the final confirmation Finn got before Gunther spoke up. “Moment of truth,” he said, rolling his shoulders. He was going through stretches, limbering up one shoulder with an arm and then the other. Getting ready for heavy physical exertion. But why? This door was smaller and lighter than the ones they'd already gone through. This one should be easy.

  Sure enough, the dimension’s sole other inhabitant pushed against the hard surface, and it gave way, swinging open to reveal the empty room Finn's power had described to him earlier. So then why get ready for something strenuous? Was Gunther hiding how much effort it took behind a mask of gruff indifference? Was he just reading too much into this? Yeah, that was probably it. They were close to getting out, after all. Just a bit more.

  His eyelids fluttered, threatening to close, but he forced them open. He had to stay awake. This was the finish line. He didn't have the time to wait for a second chance. Forget about rest. Keep moving forward, don't look back, he told himself, following the taller man into the room with trembling yet resolute steps.

  They entered. Whatever he had expected to happen, be it something grandiose or unexpected, nothing had come to pass so far. It was still just them, the sound of their footfalls filling the silence.

  Once they came to a stop a few paces away from the platform, Gunther turned and faced him. Except he wasn't saying anything, merely looking at him with an assessing gaze, like when Finn had first arrived in this place.

  “We're here,” he said.

  “We are.”

  “So?” he prompted.

  “Preparing for the endgame. Needed some time to recover—that’s why I didn’t just haul you straight here. Gave me what I needed,” Gunther explained.

  Finn needed more than that. “Tell me what you're planning.”

  Gunther scoffed. “Think you’ve got the power to make demands? Or is your soul cracking, lashing out at the world as it falls apart?”

  He was tired of these philosophy lessons. “There's no time for this.” If this game was going to continue forever, he might as well try his luck with the crystal in his pocket, even though he could tell it was depleted.

  The older man dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Guess there isn't.”

  More silent heartbeats passed, with Gunther simply staring at the platform. It was round, elevator a few centimeters over the rest of the floor, and lighter in color. Completely white where everything else was gray. The artificial light shone down on his face, making his features seem harsher despite his placid expression.

  “See that?” he began, pointing at the platform. “That’s the target. ‘Cause there was no other way to pull enough of our gracious host’s attention here. Why? Family—kinship, maybe. Amalgam wasn’t the first of its kind.

  “The first success, sure, but Wanderlust had a failed iteration. Less independent, less refined, confined to this one spot. Worse in every way. And somehow still useful, since it provides an opportunity.”

  “I thought you didn't need a plan,” Finn challenged, clenching his numb fists. Was this guy going to get this over with or what?

  “I don't. All I need is timing,” said Gunther. “The dimensional boundary between this place and Earth is always blocked, Amalgam sees to that. Given enough time, I could break the block, but why bother? I’ve found a way to make it focus so much of itself here that breaking free gets a whole lot easier. All I have to do…”

  And then it happened. Gunther changed.

  Not the way a shifter did. He didn't move his consciousness from one body to another, effectively changing shapes in an instant. No, the clean, faint white scars all over his body grew rougher, thicker. His torso reddened and expanded, tearing out of his shirt with red scales. He grew and grew, past the point where anyone could be called human.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Dark spikes burst from his back. Ivory white claws extended from his monstrous hands each bearing such sharpness they were no doubt capable of ripping through steel. And his face elongated to form a snout, teeth growing to match those of a predator. Two gleaming yellow eyes gazed downward.

  “...is to bring a sacrificial lamb,” he growled in a guttural voice, like sandpaper scraping in the air, deep enough to rumble in Finn's entire body.

  The entire world ground to a screeching halt. Finn's mind went blank. Every thought he had about conserving energy, keeping himself going, making it back out of here, it all went out the window.

  Because he recognized this monster. How couldn't he? For years, he had imagined the moment he came face to face with the object of his revenge. Hate flowed through his veins as he recalled his piled up anger, the hurt this piece of garbage had caused. Pain and loss, that void in his heart aching whenever he was reminded it was only him and Mom at the dinner table. The funeral, knowing he could never say goodbye. That feeling of lacking something that he'd had his entire life growing heavier, unresolved burdens weighing down on him with no way to get rid of them. Quiet nights where he couldn't see a way out and wished he could have Dad back.

  He unleashed it all.

  “OMEGA!!!!”

  Miraculously, he still managed to break into a run. His failing body wasn't going to slow him down. Not for this. He didn't care what happened to him afterwards, he had to do this no matter what. His arm reared back for a punch.

  Ever since becoming Shade, he had thought that there were various instances in his career where he'd hit that adrenaline peak. The point where his strength spiked to the true limit of his physical capability. He was wrong. This moment here was, with one hundred percent certainty, the furthest he had pushed himself. Never before had he mustered all his might quite like this.

  Finn's charge elicited no reaction from the three-meter tall, scaled bipedal bear. Omega just stood there, watching his fist make contact.

  The bones in his hand broke from the impact, such power did he channel into the hit.

  Uselessly.

  He might as well have been punching a diamond wall for all the good it did. His nemesis didn't budge in the slightest.

  Undeterred, Finn continued punching until his arms were ruined, and kept going once he reached that point. A scream erupted from his throat as he saw the world-class murderer refuse to go down. But his assault came to a stop.

  Omega was going to counter. He didn't know how he knew. The aura simply made it so obvious. Rather than a cloud of emotions, he saw a multicolored outline of that massive right arm swerving into a backhand. He tried to dodge, but he was too slow. Far too slow.

  When it struck him, everything went black. As if for a moment, Finn was no longer in the material realm, exposed to the touch of death. And when he bounced, the world blurred by. Flashes of the wall, ceiling, floor. From what he could register, he skidded across the room before coming to a stop.

  In the middle of the white circle.

  A pure black liquid started to rise from its surface, surrounding him and hovering there. Long enough for Finn to look back up.

  “Goodnight, Summitway,” Omega said. “Looks like this one’s a bust too. Maybe the third time'll be the charm.”

  Those were the last words he heard from his enemy while he was trapped in this circle. White liquid surrounded the black, and he realized that it was coalescing the same way Amalgam did back in the other room. It formed a dome around him, preventing his escape.

  With his senses, he spotted Omega's claws rending the air itself, and that was the only thing he could discern prior to what he had to dub the second most painful experience of his life.

  The black liquid found his skin and sank into his body. He couldn't do anything to stifle the vocal reactions to the pain, but he didn’t bother. That was the furthest thing from his mind. He needed to obliterate Omega. He attempted to crawl out…

  His body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. His movements ceased completely, he didn’t even blink. All his focus turned inward because the black substance was attacking his heart. His other vital organs weren’t spared either. And now that it was inside of him, he noticed that the composition of this strange material was the same as Amalgam, but not. Cruder.

  It didn’t matter though. Now that his power had identified nanomachines once, it could do so again. The problem was that he had no clue what to do about it. He strained his power and got an exploding nose bleed in return as his physical form was ravaged and he lay there helplessly. He imposed his will, commanding his ability to work.

  He suffered a brain hemorrhage, his senses kindly informed him. What was happening? He didn’t get it. Why was he not dead already if the goal of these hellish creations was to kill him? He was no match for any being with real power. If the past few months had taught him anything, it was that.

  Did that mean there was a purpose to this beyond destroying him from the inside out? Blood pooled under his head as he considered the answer. He convulsed, thinking of where to apply his power. None of his tricks seemed to make any difference.

  Except, that wasn’t true.

  He was disrupting the movement patterns of these nanites in larger clusters. What he was lacking was precision. At no point had his power reached a level where he could affect his surroundings on this scale. Atoms, molecules, the building blocks of life itself.

  The answer, then, would have to be an increase in precision? He didn’t think he could manage it. He had to manage it. There was no other option. Whether he estimated his abilities sufficient or not, he would die if he didn’t pull it off.

  In the latter half of the battle against Viperia, he had experienced a boosting power from an external source. One that had let him modulate his power on a new axis of reality altogether. That wasn’t relevant here. The important part was that it had also stretched its basic parameters past what should ordinarily be within his capability.

  He recalled that sensation of becoming more. He remembered the feeling of growth, and grasped it again. Gathering all his mental fortitude, he concentrated, envisioning himself possessing greater control. He tightened his mind’s hold, performing the leaps repeatedly. Every pass, he got closer and closer to that ideal.

  Trapped in an alternate dimension, betrayed, poisoned, wounded, paralyzed, and infested with foreign invaders shredding the foundations of his existence, Finn did not surrender.

  He fought.

  ---------

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